Anyone following this blog will know I’ve had an intense time of it lately and that it’s been non stop for absolutely ages now, since we started planning to move really, which was a couple of years ago and then, finally moving in to our new place last month. We pretty much finished the last of the urgent unpacking and house sorting at the weekend and, in the three days prior to that, were away at yet another family funeral, 200 miles away, which was not the easy turnaround trip on any level. Feeling both physically and emotionally wrung out, we wrapped up the last bit of house “tweaking” on Saturday morning, just as several of my family members descended for a visit that lasted over half the weekend and was pretty full on. 

During that time, my body sent out all the usual signals that I’m at the end of my tether. Disautonomic chaos ensued, from wildly swinging temperature disregulation to toxic headache and heart arrhythmia so pronounced it kept me awake in the night. Yet here I am, on Monday morning (I started writing this a few days ago), feeling like…even though I so desperately need to stop everything for the moment and give my body the time and respite it needs to calm down…I literally can’t because its somehow “wrong” or “lazy”, “boring” or “a waste of valuable time” to vegetate on the sofa the way my body so desperately needs to do. 

This is how I am: I just can’t seem to stop everything and be still for very long without going through some sort of mental angst over it; no, not just mental but physical as though it is in panic that I suddenly ceased moving and its true, if I stop too long, serotonin bums out and I get really morose and lack-lustre. Its an interesting observation, made all the more stark by the fact I have been pushing myself so very hard to be busy all these recent weeks, running multiple little projects at any one time, none of them written down, all coordinated (you would think) chaotically bur really according to some grand master scheme in my head, consuming me utterly,  whether I’m up a ladder touching up paintwork or on my laptop scouring for some “perfect” piece of furniture or whatever we need, following which you would think I would be able to decide that I “deserve” a bit of a break for a few days. Yet I still struggle to allow myself to take that break, it’s like a wrestling match all the way….have to be busy, have to be doing something. My brain makes it feel wrong or tries to sabotage me, throwing thoughts into my head that compel or entice me to more action. Boom and bust is a very real peril for me with my health track record yet I can’t seem to do as much as I would like to avoid repeating it over and over again; here’s a link to an article on all the ways ADHD can exacerbate various health conditions because of this tendency.

How much of this is part of my ADHD (rather than, say, cultural or family conditioning…my whole family are pretty much like this) I don’t really know but I do know its an important factor in just how wrung out I endlessly become, feeding into chronic fatigue and many more of my chronic symptoms. I’ve seen it at work all these last weeks during which, in the throes of getting the house sorted just the way I want it (which I’m aware has been as much of a compulsion/addiction/dopamine high as its been a burden/challenge/chore) I’ve been almost completely unable to sit down and just smell the roses. I’ve seen our relaxing new space taking shape before my eyes but its as though I am unable to give myself full permission to sit down and actually relax in it!

Beneath it all there’s an underlying fear of stopping, of the tasks running out, of the project being over…because what then? I can feel a sort of panic, almost depression or sense of hopelessness, creeping up on me at the merest hint that I might lose the delicious feeling of having an objective that has propelled me all these weeks and months, ever since we first decided to sell our old house, relocate nearly 200 miles and buy this one. These things have absorbed and focused me for nigh-on 18 months now and they have, in many ways, helped me to keep my head above the waterline of complete chronic health languishment because there has never been a “good time” to completely succumb to my symptoms or give them too much attention. In other words, our circumstances have enabled this pre-existing addiction to being busy, legitimising a “push to the finish line” way of living that, not so deep down, has been feeding this ADHD trait I have of really needing to feel like I am being highly overstimulated much of the time. Its very much how I was at school or uni (some of the most satisfying times of my life), with the pressure of the big deadline justifying my underlying need to feel like I was living with a strong sense of imperative and purpose, driving myself hard to some ultimate objective and getting a visceral, chemical, kick out it.

Also, if I stop, I risk having to pay attention to pain and other shortcomings of my existence such as constant tinnitus, neuralgia, headaches, joint pain, hypersensitivity to the environment and other niggles that would flood my mind with worries and negative preoccupations. I find that keeping myself busy pushes these things to the sidelines and enables me to pretend there’s nothing much going on there, at least most of the daylight hours. So at what stage in my life did obsessive busyness become a distraction from physical challenges that would otherwise drive me nuts? I know my dad’s inability to stop tearing about the place, keeping himself obsessively occupied with his “urgent” gardening chores until he was barely able to stand, was very-much fuelled by his niggly health, his high-sensitivity, his tinnitus and worsening heart symptoms. In many ways, I am just so similar to him, a chip off the old block (and I would certainly say he was ADHD in hindsight). I see the same behaviour traits in my brother too, all the more as he ages yet always rushing around like a dervish.

So how many of us with ADHD use the constant hyper-stimulation we create for ourselves as a distraction from other things we really don’t want to focus on? Is it closely linked to our heightened sensitivity (see article on the link between ADHD and hypersensitivity), be that to our own internal body workings or to the environment around is? Hyperesthesia (a neurological condition that causes a person extreme sensitivity to touch, pain, pressure, and thermal sensations) is apparently an attribute common to people with ADHD, including being highly sensitive to physical or emotional stimuli and the tendency to be easily overwhelmed by too much information. If so, the big paradox is that stopping doing so many things (to allow the body to recover itself from time to time) only risks intensifying awareness of all these potential sources of stimuli whereas remaining manically busy can, at least in my case, help me to tune them out; which is exactly as I am finding it to be, today, as I lie here noticing things about my body that I have managed to largely ignore  for the last few weeks. So, am I really more symptomatic at the moment, the penalty of overdoing it…or, as things slow down, am is it just that I’m being forced to pay more attention than usual to unpleasant things going on that my hypersensitive senses pick up, in which case, how can I possibly expect to get the physical respite I need if I slow down? I would rather stay busy!

The fact remains that an inability to sit still and relax will always get to me in the end if I don’t give myself that respite my body and especially my nerves call for, which usually takes having to enforce such a pause (like today, virtually banning myself from getting up off the sofa for the whole day, almost having to sit on my hands to stop myself from multitasking…the very fact I am typing this post tells you this isn’t going so well). My inability to do this because I want to, like any “normal person” would  probably just welcome the opportunity to have a day off, to relax and do nothing, has been really obvious to me since we moved into this lovely house, which is constantly inviting us to stop and be at peace in ways the old house never did. Back in that house, I see now that I kept myself constantly busy as a distraction, not just from my health but, from all the environmental factors that were driving me nuts such as constant traffic noise. Here, we don’t have that and yet I still really struggle to relax and be still for very long…somewhat better than I used to be but still a long way to go!

I am managing short bursts of just soaking up the peace and quiet, enjoying the view, listening to the birds but I really struggle to succumb for more than up to 15 minutes at a time, always telling myself that I’ll do more of that relaxing later, once this thing or that thing is ticked off my mental list. Perfectionism has gone crazy and I’m stuck in the mindset of “why put something off to tomorrow if I can get it done today” (which I suspect is the reverse of how most people operate). I take more tasks on as soon as they occur to me, even when I’m exhausted, needing the bathroom or meant to be somewhere else in five minutes…like the day I “just” started hanging pictures when I was due to be at the opticians in 20 minutes with a 15 minute drive to get there and park, or the way I will tweak a scuffed bit of paintwork as soon as I spot it in the evening on the way to the kitchen for a bedtime nightcap rather than adding it to my list for tomorrow. More and more, I see traits like these that my dad had (and which we all used to laugh at) playing out in me and it would be funny again, except its not when I get no respite and burn out. I sometimes wonder if I’m like this because I’m afraid I will forget to do the task if I don’t do it immediately and I suspect that’s part of it as I can never be bothered to write things down (maybe I need to try…) combined with a rubbish memory but that’s not all of the story. There’s a drive in me to “perfect” that makes me determined to do the thing as soon as its registered as a kink that needs to be ironed out and its been a tyrant all my life, getting worse with the passing of years.

Only the other day, I had just settled into my rocking chair in a patch of sunlight with the door to the garden ajar for the first time this year, a favourite book I hadn’t picked up since the “old house” in my hand and so happy too be requainted with it, the birds singing their heads off outside,  the coffee brewed, thinking to myself just how idyllic it all was; I really was in a swoon of bliss and thanking my lucky stars for being there in that moment in our new house and just landed into the new life…yet, only seconds later (I kid you not) I had leapt up and was now across the other side of the room reassembling a picture frame that I had suddenly decided to paint a different colour the day before, tinkering about with a knife to make the edges smoother. Internally, I was laughing at myself for my lack of ability to sustain even the most inviting moments for very long but I was also mortified. Almost as soon as I have clocked the perfection of such a moment, like taking a minds-eye photograph of it, I am already prepared to dismantle it and move on to the next thing. Its as though I am designed to blow-up such moments of completion, some part of me utterly compelled to drop the pebble in the smooth pond, like I just can’t help myself!

How much all of this feeds into a long running propensity to become burned out can only be guessed at but it is very easy to guess that my system probably feels forced to resort to extreme measures, such as crashing  my health utterly, to induce me to stop from time to time. Which I did, yesterday, once the family had all left…crash that is, so I finally allowed myself a sofa day of binging on TV series, which is something I hadn’t done for the longest time, and never in this house, so I definitely needed and deserved it…but today, being Monday, I am back in the struggle.

Somehow it feels “illegal” to not at least be using my hands or head to do something constructive as I lie here, hence writing this post. Its as though I have to have some sort of output to show for my time or my entire nervous system goes into a panic, plus I hate to feel like I am “meant” to be somewhere else doing something different, like I will “get behind” if I don’t head for the busiest zone I can be in. It reminds me of times when I was off school with a bad cold yet would spending the whole time thinking about whatever lesson I was meant to be in at the time, worrying about how far behind I would get, how much more difficult it would be to get back on the same page when I returned to school…no, I never truly relaxed when I was off school or work. It’s like my particular version of FOMO…a fear of missing out on something…that gnaws and niggles the whole time I’m sat on the sidelines. My version isn’t to do with missing out on social connection so much as not being in the busiest zone I could be in doing something productive with my time; there’s always something better I could be doing, when I’m just sat around, and it drives me nuts!

I guess stagnation feels abhorrent to me and always has (I’m categorically not a beach person on holiday); not a great match for chronic conditions where you inevitably have to spend some time “out” from time to time, being necessary so that your body has at least some chance of rebooting itself.  Complete stagnation is never good but being able to get some respite is essential to us all…but a highly elusive thing for me!

Nonetheless, now would be a really good time to reboot myself, in the gap between what has been such a busy and intense time, lasting many months, and more busy time coming up in just a couple of weeks time onwards and as warmer, more productive days, ensue. It would be a “logical” time for me to take a pause so I am trying very hard to lean into that because at least then my autistic brain, which is always most compelled by the sensible choices, might lend it some sway. So as hard as it is, and against the grain as I always find it, I am continuing to talk myself into just surrendering to the couch today…trusting that my body will use the opportunity to get back onto a better footing and calm itself down. This “reboot” is something I don’t need to interfere with but just let happen, trusting for once that my body knew best and that, at the end of a day or two, I will be in a far better state to resume my frenetically busy ways all over again…just so long as I don’t overdo it!

Add on note: this post was written on Monday and I at least had the good grace not to make myself edit and post it on the same day. Since then, I’ve managed to get about 75% complete rest, excepting a few minor relapses, and am starting to settle down with my arrhythmia all but gone.  I’m not through it yet (a big risk for me is to declare “that’s enough” and go back to activity too soon…) in fact finishing off this blog has made me so tired I could almost go back to bed and maybe I should consider it. A big help has been installing a bird feeding station so I can at least use birdwatching as gentle mental stimulation when I’m sat on the sofa (do you know that bird watching is a suggested “menu” item for an ideal ADHD dopamine diet; this being a list of healthy ways of “stimming” that can written down and selected from whenever in need, to avoid falling back into bad overstimulatory habits). As always happens during such times, my brain has greatly overcompensated for lack of movement in the body, meaning I have sprouted countless new ideas and tasks in my mind but am trying not to launch myself so quickly I trip myself up again!

By the way an extremely relevant free webinar for those of us with ADHD is coming up this Thursday so in case any of you are interested, here is the link to sign up, including a replay. Its on the topic of two more adult ADHD pitfalls: oversharing and underinvesting in relationships.

In this webinar, Caroline Maguire, M.Ed., will explain the social traps that frustrate adults with ADHD and keep them from having healthy friendships. She’ll also discuss the missing link to creating and sustaining friendships: learning the skills to build friendships differently.

In this webinar, you will learn:

• How past social struggles and foibles affect your mindset when you’re an adult with ADHD
• How to overcome common social traps for adults with ADHD
• Strategies to keep connections with friends ongoing without feeling burdened
• How to gain confidence in your friendship skills and banish the negative inner narrative

As braving “how to make new friends” in our new location is going to be my next big challenge, this topic is right on time for me!

Final add-on note: today is my WordPress anniversary…13 years of non-stop blogging…happy blogaversary to me!